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by Christine Bongers

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Cracker of a read with kick-ass half-breed heroine Verity Fassbinder protecting the humans of Brisbane from the unseen Weyrd that dwell amongst us. Not sure if it's destined for cult or classic status, but it's smart, sassy and wickedly funny and I can't wait for the next in the triology.

I found this clinically specific use of verbs oddly interesting, coinciding as it did, with one of the most prolonged periods of blogstipation and generalised creative blockage that I have experienced in years.

What verb, I wondered, could dispel this depressing circumstance?

For much of the summer I had tried rationalising it away as a function of school holidays, visitors, floods, loss of a treasured publisher, and pressure of work, family and other commitments.

That just seemed to make it worse. So I tried ignoring, denying, and finally, airing and venting. None of that seemed to help either, so I lay awake at night, ruminating on a cure.

‘I’m blogspitated,’ I finally told my husband’s back in the blackest part of the night.

‘Try exercising and eating more fruit,’ he mumbled, rolling onto his back and snoring some more.

Good advice, as it turns out. I’m now on a daily diet of plump and juicy words from brilliant writers and poets. I am flexing my atrophied writing muscles, straightening out stiff sentences, oiling up creaking clauses, massaging meaning into disheartened prose.

And the blockage is dissipating.

In the immortal words of writing mentor Dr Kim Wilkins: I might be writing crap, but at least I’m writing.

“Writing crap” sure fits with the rest of your verbal explorations Chris. Does one dissapate the crap or save it and flush it? You sound as if you’re on a diet which will allow you to engorge yourself.